Dance On Our Graves

Chapter 23

After an hour at Dinah's theatre, they all gather at a nice restaurant uptown. Everyone has taken to chatting amongst themselves while Lauren is trying to coax Emily into telling her what she wants to eat.

"You should get the Brussels sprouts," Abuelo says from across the table.

"Ew! No!" Emily scrunches up her nose, "I want a grilled cheese."

Lauren still marvels at how much she has to learn about parenting. She has been trying for five minutes and Abuelo says one sentence and bam, he has an answer.

"So Normani," Lauren's mom starts and waits for the woman's attention before continuing, "How have you been? I haven't seen you since your senior year of high school?"

Normani smiles brilliantly and glances at Lauren before looking back at Lauren's mom. Lauren can tell that she just took Dinah's hand under the table. "I've been fantastic."

Lauren's mother smiles warmly at her, "That's good. What do you do for work?"

Normani opens her mouth, but Dinah interjects proudly, "She's a writer."

"No way," Abuelo looks from Lauren to Normani and back, "That's her?"

Lauren nods and tells him in Spanish that he's not allowed to tell anyone. He pauses and asks about her mom. Lauren nodded once again, but tells her too that she can't tell anyone. She looks bewildered before Abuelo adds to her mom, "She wrote that book I was telling you about."

Lauren's mom looks wildly impressed and turns to Normani, "Kordei Hansen?"

Normani blushes and looks across the table at Lauren. Lauren just shrugs, "They won't tell."

She finally nods, "Mhmm. Which book did you read?"

"The latest one," Lauren's mother states.

Abuelo asks, "You read it?"

Her mother nods, "Of course I did. After you told me about it, how was I supposed to not read it." She looked over at Normani, "You're amazing at what you do."

Abuelo nods. "I couldn't stop reading."

"Thank you," Normani says bashfully, her blush growing deeper. Lauren smile at all this flattery. She doesn't think that she's used to it, especially about something other than her looks.

"You capture the loneliness your characters feel beautifully," Lauren's mother comments, "The isolation they feel....it's brilliant."

"It's amazing how you paint them to feel so alone," Abuelo states, moving back so that the waiter can put down his plate.

At that Lauren's eyes shoot to Dinah whose jaw is visibly clenching. Normani's smile has turned from bashful to pained.

Lauren tries to diffuse the situation by changing the subject, "Oh mom that looks great. What did you get?"

Her answer is interrupted by Dinah abruptly standing. She tosses her napkin onto her chair and when she sees everyone looking, she fumbles with, "I- e-excuse me." With that, she walked off.

"Um," Normani stood at well, "She's just really tired. She just got off of a plane from Paris right before the recital." She mumbled a rushed 'excuse me' and walked off after her.

"Did I say something?" Abuelo asks Lauren.

Lauren looks over at Emily who is paying close attention because her favorite adult friend just ran after her girlfriend. So she decides to speak in Spanish so she won't understand.

"Mani is...You got that Mani and Dinah are together right?" Lauren ask them. They both nod so she move on, "They live in a huge house, the one where we had Emily's birthday, but Dinah's never home. She's always off working and she won't take Normani with her because her publicist thinks it would be bad publicity or something. So Mani is lonely. And lately, Dinah is realizing just how lonely and isolated." Lauren hopes that using their own words will help them realize what they've done.